History has taught us that a fully centrally controlled government system fails completely – well, in the long run.
The idea of a communistic system has its merits and could still work in some sectors of our economies. It, however, omits the very thing that was provided to us as human beings – choice.
Knowledge is empowering – but the power to do the things you would like to do effortlessly without fear of error.
This shared knowledge emanates from scientific, biological, or financially proven theories and tests.
They can help you make the right investments. Such as saving money on the best deals, obtaining rights to social benefits, travel to great destinations. Or simply just helping other people achieve their personal and spiritual goals.
Monopolistic behaviour
Those that cling onto knowledge though, serve their interests alone and should not be revered but rather shunned for power-hogging.
Sadly, some governments monopolize access to information, basic services, resources, and even education to create an artificial demand for ´their services’.
This forms the basis of a centrally controlled or outright communistic state.
In business, this is a common practice of a monopoly to control the price of their good or service as they are the only ones providing it.
The quality of that good or service, however, can and will be determined by them and them alone!
Can you imagine then, based on the previous sentence, a situation that only governments have this power to dictate a basic service such as healthcare or education for you?
Scary thought and if you look at most developing countries, the evidence of this is overwhelmingly sad.
But we are not here to talk about the governments as there would be several cases to point out and this is not a political platform.
Case in point, the concept of a centrally controlled system nevertheless is less efficient and prone to failure to disseminate the very items it sets out to provide.
Deploying software by a global firm like IBM, via a centrally stored-located server would be absurd because the infrastructure of the recipient regions or end-users might not be well equipped to handle it.
So one begs to question, why would you do it for social services for instance?
Decentralized systems
Decentralizing a system can improve efficiency because it gives options to get the best quality possible. It also removes power from one or a few providers and shares it equally amongst other stakeholders.
This way all will stand to mutually benefit from a working system indirectly rather than just the state collecting monetary compensation or tax and deciding what to do with it alone.
Centralized systems can learn from the blockchain to efficiently provide services.
Let’s take the now “illegal” peer-to-peer file-sharing and downloading software such as eDonkey/eMule (developed by Microsoft).
Or take BitTorrent for example you could with them, build together any file by downloading “bits” of the file by many connected servers or PCs (peers).
This system leads to faster downloads and allows one to source from the best quality of the available digital bits to get the data to form the e-book, music track, or movie that you were after.
Leaving your download running would enable others to get the files you have already amassed (you reciprocally upload the files). The cycle continues until everyone acquires the same great quality file from the best ‘seeds’.
Downloading from a sole server for the same product, on the contrary, could crash the server.
Let’s not forget the delays due to operational differences in time-zones, or complete failure to download if the file source is corrupted or the file quality is bad.
Application of decentralized systems
Naturally, the entertainment industry put a stop to this because it meant that people could attain their copyrighted material.
Many fines and warnings were dished out to individuals as well as companies hosting the sharing servers.
You can, however, still access them via carefully planned entry gateways to hide your IP address using VPNs. Those of you who are IT experts can use (old-school) backend protocols like FTP.
BitTorrent -> Bitcoin…Torrent -> Tor ..anyone seeing a pattern here?
There is now even a new digital currency designed to help artists curb piracy and reward the artists for their work.
Such protective software is already in the pipeline thanks to blockchain technology.
Decentralizing services such as money transfers in the advent of Cryptomania removes power from regulated financial institutions. They tend to charge high fees for sometimes slow and error-prone services because they can.
Conclusion
So, swiftness and security are a prime reason for the adoption the Blockchain technology. Everything else such as the price of digital alternative coins or ‘altcoins’ boils down to basic supply and demand for it.
Governments and other institutional service providers can take a leaf out of the blockchain technology tree and its true intention.